Your Search Results

      • Proverse Hong Kong

        Proverse Hong Kong is a Hong Kong-based press publishing local and international authors with local and international content, including:  English-language and translated literary novels, short story and poetry collections, detective stories, mysteries and thrillers, non-fiction (biography, memoirs, travel, china missionary, education and law-court history; source materials including annotated archival transcriptions) ; poetry anthologies; YA fiction; books for students; academic studies (mainly with a Hong Kong and Hong Kong China focus). Formats: paperback, hardback, POD, e-books, audio. Publication awards: from local and international cultural bodies. Events: Spring and Autumn Receptions in Hong Kong with prize announcements and awards, book launches, authors’ brief talks. Prizes: We offer two annual international prizes for writing previously unpublished in English: 1) the Proverse Prize  for book-length works of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry; 2) the Proverse Poetry Prize  for single poems (max 30 lines). Open to all, 18+ irrespective of residence, nationality or citizenship.  Annual entry periods: 7 May-30 June. More information: proversepublishing.com

        View Rights Portal
      • Thriller / suspense

        The Disobedient

        by Joona Keskitalo

        A highly addictive story of a ruthless climb to the top of the drug game.   The Disobedient is the first season in a series of crime novels set in the world of drug trafficking and a story about a group of friends, where everyone looks after their own best interests first. TV and film rights already sold.   PETE: An impulsive marketing start-up entrepreneur Pete thinks he has a unique idea for a facial recognition marketing software, but he needs significant investment to turn his vision into reality. Things begin to go sour when he loses one of his most important clients and they also publicly shoot down Pete’s idea. The worst thing, however, is that Pete had “borrowed” some money from his wife to cover the company’s expenses. He is neck deep in trouble.   MAX: The owner of an ailing workwear company Once a fiddler, always a fiddler, Max will sell seconds at best quality prices whenever possible. Max is still the same shameless opportunist he was back in school with only one thing on his mind – money. The problem is that he is so much better at spending than making money.   JOONAS: A skilled but stand-offish lawyer A strategic thinker with a keen analytical mind, Joonas is good at problem solving. If only it were not for his colleague Elli who repeatedly takes credit for all of Joonas’ hard work, he would have already been promoted. However, the feeling of power he gets from the successful drug deals just might be the boost his confidence has needed all this time…   JESSE: a successful cybersecurity developer Jesse is a a devoted husband and father who, according to the others, was a real boy scout already back in school. He eventually agrees to join the gang only because Joonas also said yes, but his programming skills might not help him adopt the code of the streets.   BUSINESS IDEA To commercialize drugs into trendy stimulants. “Ten grams of Handpicked Joy and Laughter by The Local Dealer Company.”   In the recession-era Finland of the nineties, Pete, Max, Jesse and Jonas were known as The Company. They made pocket money by selling homemade pins and t-shirts, and, eventually, tobacco. Through Max’s Russian acquaintance they sourced cheap cigarettes and made sure that kids in their secondary school smoked more than in any other school in Helsinki. After school they parted ways …until twenty years later two of them meet by chance and their new business sees the light of day.   They quickly realise that drug trafficking in Finland is astonishingly rudimentary. The quartet put all their marketing, branding, and logistics skills to use and find new ways to effectively promote, sell, and distribute drugs on the dark web. The Local Dealer Company is born. However, there are other dangers in the drug trade than the unpredictability of consumer behaviour and the fluctuations of bitcoin price – the Russian mafia, for example. It is a long climb to the top of the drug trade. Always watch your back and never forgive.   The Disobedient is a thoroughly shameless story of selfish people, double standards, greed and cruelty.  A witty and funny page-turner, the novel will grab you from the start and not let go until you’ve turned the very last page, leaving you wanting more.

      • Fiction

        Between Two Sounds. The Story Behind the Music of Arvo Pärt

        by Joonas Sildre

        Between Two Sounds tells the story behind the music of the world-famous Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Arvo Pärt’s (b. 1935) music became increasingly popular throughout the world following his forced emigration from then-Soviet Estonia in 1980. International performances and recordings swelled to the point where today, in 2019, there are over 500 professional recordings featuring his works. The online concert tracker Bachtrack has listed him as the world’s most-performed living classical composer for the past eight years running (2011–2018). Pärt’s music, and sometimes that of his imitators, has become ubiquitous in film and television. In spite of this success, Pärt has remained incredibly private and modest, granting almost no interviews. Until now, there have been no biographies published on any part of Pärt’s life. Information about his personal and career developments prior to 1980 has been limited to snippets from print interviews and Estonian film documentaries. The graphic novel Between Two Sounds provides unprecedented insight into this uncovered area. It is worth mentioning that Pärt himself was closely involved in drafting the story and staying true to the facts. Between Two Sounds starts with Pärt’s birth, moves through his youth and the kindling of his love of music, covers his musical education and early years as a composer, and gradually arrives at his retreat from the world as he searched for his own musical voice. Pärt’s first creative period can be called avant-garde modernism. He was perceived as an “angry young man” in the Soviet music scene of the 1960s. The second part of his career emerged in the mid-1970s, when his own spiritual technique evolved: tintinnabuli (little bell-like). The shift between these two fundamentally different musical languages happened slowly but dramatically. Pärt ceased writing music for the public for about a decade, fully immersing in his search for a new, individual compositional technique. Between Two Sounds shows what led him to this change and how he succeeded. The graphic novel also touches upon a universal artistic problem: an inability to fully express oneself through skills or a desired technique. Another sub-theme is Estonians’ struggle during the Soviet occupation: the severe restrictions on the freedom of speech, garnished with attempts to contain and control ideas and beliefs; restrictions that sometimes played out in utterly absurd situations. The repression of Pärt’s career under the Soviet regime eventually culminated in his forced emigration to the West. In October 2018, the first Estonian-language hardcover print of Between Two Sounds was published by the Arvo Pärt Centre in conjunction with Centre’s grand opening. As of February 2019, it has been nominated for six different literary and cultural prizes. It received the annual Golden Book Award from the Estonian National Library and was selected as one of Estonia’s Best Designed Books of 2018. The work has naturally received widespread media attention, including lengthy positive reviews in Estonia’s largest newspapers.

      Subscribe to our

      newsletter